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By Harry Blazer I would like to thank Nazha Aschenbrenner for giving me the opportunity to provide my perspective on Investment in Agriculture for Sustainability and Food Security (sovereignty) since I was not available to moderate the session at the 2014 AIM Conference. First some definitions. We define food as primary ingredients or that, which is made from primary ingredients, using processes that do not alter the fundamental integrity, wholesomeness and healthfulness of the primary ingredients used. A primary ingredient is water and also a natural (non-synthetic) nutrient with a fully-disclosed, one-word ingredient statement, which is neither genetically modified nor produced using GM technologies. We define food sovereignty as self-sufficiency in the production of all nutrients including water and wholesome, healthful and nutritious: a) land-based foods, i.e. fruit, vegetables, grains, livestock and b) water-based foods i.e. fish/seafood; and distribution of those nutrients to the population as required – in sufficient quantities for the population to thrive. We define sustainability as that which at worst is benign and preferably beneficial to the quality of air, water and soil. Sustainability can also be viewed through three lenses: a. Material – where rate of use < rate of replenishment, with the goal of emulating as much as possible Nature’s closed-nutrient-loops where there is no “waste”, since the waste products of one process become the feed stock for another. b. Energy – All secondary sources of energy, even so called renewable sources, are derived from our sun. So the closer we can get to the direct use of the sun’s energy, the more sustainable we are likely to be. c. Economic/Social – the key...

Scientists are warning the planet has now reached a grim climate milestone not seen for two or three million years. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says the amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has topped 400 parts per million. The 400 ppm threshold has been an important marker in U.N. climate change negotiations, widely recognized as a dangerous level that could drastically worsen human-caused global warming. The environmentalist group 350.org takes its name after the 350 parts per million threshold that scientists say is the maximum atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide for a safe planet. In a statement on the parts per million number hitting 400, 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben said, quote, “The only question now is whether the relentless rise in carbon can be matched by a relentless rise in the activism necessary to stop it.” To find out more about the impacts of crossing the threshold, study the books of leading climate scientist Michael Mann, distinguished professor of meteorology at Penn State University, author of the recent book, The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines. So, this number, 400 parts per million, what does it mean? It’s the number of molecules of CO2 for every million molecules of air; 400 of them are now CO2. Just two centuries ago, that number was only 280 parts per million. So if we continue to add carbon to the atmosphere at current rates, we’ll reach a doubling of the pre-industrial levels of CO2 within the next few decades. We have to go several million years back in time to find a point...

Richard Heinberg continues his series of videos to help educate the American public and to urge people to become more prepared before the shortages and high prices of petroleum severely impacts individuals’...

So far, 2012 has been the hottest year on record, with an average temperature for the first eight months of 58.66 degrees. This is about a degree warmer than the second-highest stretch in 2006. Click to embiggen. And once again, the past 12 months have been the hottest 12 months ever in the contiguous U.S. So was the prior 12-month stretch, and the one before...

Poland, a country that produces 90% of its electricity with coal and once a seemingly impregnable bastion of neoliberalism in the heart of Europe, has announced that it will introduce a new law on renewable energy. The new law will introduce feed-in tariffs for the first time. The new law, the Renewable Energy Sources Act in English, will likely not take effect until early 2013. The announcement was made by Poland’s deputy minister, Mieczyslaw Kasprzak, at a press conference 27 July 2012. Other former East Bloc countries have introduced feed-in tariffs for renewable energy with varying degrees of success and consistency, most famously the Czech Republic. Poland, however, through its long association with émigré communities in the U.S., and its early rebellion against Soviet rule, became the poster child of neoliberal “reforms” following the fall of Communism. Thus, any move by the generally conservative Polish government to move away from its troubled system of Tradable Green Certificates and toward feed-in tariffs is potentially groundbreaking. Perhaps it’s not unrelated that the other conservative bookend of the European Union, Great Britain, had previously made a decision to scrap its Quota system (Renewable Portfolio Standard in US terminology) and introduce a form of feed-in tariffs dubbed Contracts for Difference. Britain had previously introduced a wildly successful feed-in tariff for microgeneration that resulted in the installation of more than 1,000 MW of solar photovoltaics. Few details of the draft bill circulating within the Polish government are available in English. From news reports and partial machine translation, here’s what little is known. Program expansion will be limited by a budget. Microgenerators will receive expedited...

In a turnabout that is considered devastating to the people still trying to deny the existence of global warming, one of the leaders of the climate change deniers has come out and proclaimed that indeed the Earth is getting warmer and it’s the fault of humans. Richard A. Muller, physics professor at University of California Berkeley, announced his change of mind in one of the most public forums he could find: the Op-Ed page in the New York Times. “Three years ago I identified problems in previous climate studies that, in my mind, threw doubt on the very existence of global warming,” wrote Muller, co-founder of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project. “Last year, following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I’m now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause.” Muller’s opinion is considered especially meaningful because his Berkeley project is heavily financed by the Charles Koch Charitable Foundation, a vehicle used by controversial petrochemical billionaire Charles G. Koch (who, along with his brother David make up the powerful “Koch Brothers” who are the sworn enemies of liberals across America) to back groups that deny the existence of climate change. Muller called his current stance “a total turnaround.” But Tonya Mullins, a spokeswoman for the Koch Foundation, said her organization puts no pressure on scientists to influence the outcome of their work. “Our grants are designed to promote independent research; as such, recipients hold full control over their findings,” Mullins said in an email to...

By Andrew Freedman With widespread power outages still plaguing a multistate swath from Indiana to Virginia after the severe “derecho” event on Friday night, the late June heat wave continues to make headlines. Numerous all-time high temperature records were set on Saturday, with additional records expected to be set during the first few days of July. Climate Central Record Tracker map showing some of the record temperatures set or tied on June 30, 2012. Atlanta set an all-time high temperature record on Saturday of 106°F, beating the old record of 105°F set in 1980. Columbus, GA also set an all-time record, with 106°F, beating the record of 105°F set on June 29, and Macon, GA tied its all-time high of 108°F, which was last observed in 1980, according to the National Weather Service. Several locations in Tennessee also set all-time record highs on Saturday. Knoxville set an all-time record high of 105°F, breaking the previous mark of 104°F set in 1930. Tri-cities broke their all-time high temperature record of 102 when the temperature reached 103°F. Charlotte and Raleigh, N.C. both tied their all-time high temperature records as well. It is unusual for all-time high temperature records to be set during June, since July and August typically feature more intense heat events than those that take place during early summer. For the seven-day period from June 24-30, 1,924 daily high temperature records were set or tied in the U.S., along with 634 warm overnight low temperature records. Of these records, 565 set or tied monthly high temperature records, and 67 set or tied monthly warm overnight low temperature records. Remarkably,...

WASHINGTON (AP) – Call it spring’s fever. Federal records show the U.S. just finished its hottest spring on record. March, April and May in the Lower 48 states beat the oldest spring temperature record by a full 2 degrees. The three months averaged 57.1 degrees, more than 5 degrees above average. That’s the most above normal for any U.S. season on record. Meteorologists define those three months as spring. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also reported Thursday that it was the second warmest May since records began in 1895. May averaged 64.3 degrees, just behind 1934. The first five months of 2012 were the hottest start to a year in U.S. weather record history. The 12-month period starting last June is also the hottest on...

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, sustainability is based on one simple principle: “Everything that we need for our survival and well-being depends, either directly or indirectly, on our natural environment. Sustainability creates and maintains the conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony that permits fulfilling the social, economic and other requirements of present and future generations.” The challenge of course is achieving this balance. It can be argued that the end of many cultures over the ages was the result of not achieving such a balance. Today we are faced with a global problem so immense that most cannot grasp the issues, let alone the projected consequences. And it is unlikely that the majority of the world’s population will voluntarily make the necessary lifestyle changes to establish this balance. One looming reality of the end of the Petroleum Era is that the availability and rapid use of large quantities of petroleum has allowed the human population to radically overshoot the carrying capacity of the earth. Therefore as oil production declines, the earth’s human population must be radically reduced by billions to bring humankind back into balance with nature. The following is a brief history and explanation by one of the world’s leading petroleum experts. He is a founder of the Association of the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO). After being awarded a Ph.D at Oxford in 1957, Dr Campbell joined the oil industry as an exploration geologist. His career took him to Borneo, Trinidad, Colombia, Australia, Papua New Guinea, the USA, Ecuador, United Kingdom, Ireland and Norway. By Colin J. Campbell – Written in...